Rabbi David Kaufman's thoughts on Israel and Current Events in the Jewish world.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

A Clarion Call - The Death of Liberty

We do our best to be tolerant of religious sensibilities. Tolerance indeed requires a willingness to avoid offense. Yet, we cannot be tolerant of those who resort to violence because someone offended their sensibilities. Freedom requires the ability to say what others, and especially those in power, do not want to hear: the criticism and the challenge. Let's just recall a few quotes shall we:

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. - George Orwell

If Freedom of Speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. - George Washington

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of the opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.
(Special message to the Congress on the internal security of the United States - August 8, 1950) - Harry Truman

Proclaim the truth and do not be silent through fear! - Catherine of Sienna, 14th Century

We have been warned time and again.

We can neither ignore the fact that we face active threats from violent Islamists nor the threat that fear will additionally produce in limiting liberty. We know that:

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech. - Benjamin Franklin

We now see the world's major media outlets refusing to offend. Oxford University Press is now discouraging the use of pigs in children's books because that might offend Muslim sensibilities. So prepare yourselves for the "Three Little Chickens and the Huffing and Puffing Wolf." Yes, we know with absolute certainty that there are people who are intolerant and even those who will engage in violence against those who challenge and disagree. Their goal it is to overthrow our liberty. Should we simply concede our freedom because the way we use it offends some?

François-Marie Arouet's philosophy fueled the American and French revolutions. He is better remembered by his nom-de-plume used so as to avoid persecution by those eager to silence him. Perhaps, his words will motivate us today:

I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. - Voltaire

Let me add my own statement and my own warning to the list of those who spoke before:

Our freedoms are based on on our willingness to fight and die for them against those willing to fight and die to limit them.

We can watch freedom slowly erode and cower in fear under threat with Jews gradually or rapidly leaving for safety in Israel from all over Europe or we can accept the reality that the one thing the west cannot tolerate is a willingness to abdicate freedom to avoid offending those who disagree with how we put it to use.

On Sunday, January 11, hundreds of thousands rallied in the streets of Paris for the sake of freedom and in support of those who are threatened. Many others in France did not rally because they do not value the defense of freedom and support the threats. Today, France and truly all of Europe face a stark choice:

Stand up and act against the growing tide of oppression that has developed because of toleration of the intolerant or